I think VOD top management have some warped idea about how people move about the country. Like, don't step on the green bits or you'll be eaten by a mutant peasant (maybe some truth in that). But they seem to be doing the same thing again as they did with 3G. Towns and major roads. When they have these big masts which if fully hooked up would give massive coverage and improve service for not only the people who live in the green bits but also the brave town dwellers who risk getting eaten and venture into them.

Do they never go on holiday? Or do they just keep a sneaky EE phone aside for that?

Agreed, I'm presently maxing out at just over 1mbps on around a -70db 4g signal here, unable to stream music or video well, 3g speeds are still OK around 6mbps 2100mhz & 4.5mbps 900mhz, the mast only went live 3 months ago and is already totally swamped.
Took a recent trip from Cheshire to Midhurst in Sussex and was sad to see very little progress has taken place with coverage along the M40, still mainly 2g with some 3g that either doesn't work or is 2mbps max, some small progress on the A34 from Oxford to Winchester but no where complete, and from Winchester to Midhurst, through the south downs, you were lucky to have any signal whatsoever let alone data, in contrast, EE was 4g mostly, some 3g on the M40 but managed to maintain 4g on the A34 and great signal coverage in the south downs, sometimes 2g but a signal none the less, even three managed lots of 4g 1800mhz & 800mhz along the journey.

It's a shame that they aren't doing well with upgrades on a national level, however on paper the city rollout in the West should provide decent competition to EE. From user reports on Twitter, Vodafone are rolling out 2*10MHz of 2100MHz 4G in addition to 2*10MHz of 800MHz 4G. This will give them far more capacity than either Three due to the density in cities, or O2 in the West as they are seemingly restricted to 2*10Mhz of 800MHz 4G.

It is unclear which handsets may support B1+B20 carrier aggregation, maybe the S7, G5, HTC 10, X Performance, OnePlus 3?

Even without carrier aggregation or the network itself load balancing, the difference in coverage between the band's should do a decent job of load balancing I'd imagine.

Some good cb deals about
500 Mins
Unl texts
10gb data
£7 after cashback

Unl texts and mins
20gb data
Free Spotify sports or now TV
£10.50 after cb a month

Cashback is never guaranteed remember, but you can use code JULYOFFER202531 for 20% off before the end of the month, which then applies for 24 months.

People from cities go outside of cities though. I know a good few dwellers of Plymouth who are on VOD and probably have very nice service where they live but as soon as they go outside start staring at their phones in confusion. I assume they think it's the same on all networks. It's pitiful. We are getting towards the end of 2016 and in reality, nothing is being done much out of the original 3G footprint down here. Pathetic.

It is Steve, the year stated very positively for them in my area, lots of upgrades in towns and some. Small villages and a few planning applications indicating more to come, but since end of March/April nothing, then when you look at the map again you see those villages only have 4g because they are near a motorway or major a road, to make matters worse 2g data even for 2g standards just doesn't work, almost always loosing any data connection at all (not displaying G or E) so you can't even email. If EE do get there 800mhz service online and widespread then I think VO2 will be in real trouble, they've had long enough now but haven't managed the time efficiently and wisely enough leaving them with a data service in too few places at an inadequate level.

Exactly. Even getting EDGE working would be a start. Just to check the bank, the weather, even if it means a wait of a few seconds. Would be something. Not even that.

Look at Beacon Hill near Torquay. Big TV mast. Tool that one up with proper back haul and boom. Massive coverage. Maybe limit the town coverage so it doesn't get swamped until the town is done but why not do that one first? As it happens the town is now down but they are still not doing Beacon. WHY NOT? Cretins. 3 put 800 on it as soon as they launched supervoice and while it may not be perfect, it at least gives you a chance in hell of making or taking a call anywhere in a 20 mile radius. Marley Head near South Brent. Another big tower. Fibre running to it now. Fire it up. Boom. Massive coverage over a huge area including the A38.

Do they do it? No, they pi$$ about with mono-poles in town centres so you can get 5 bars at the nearest roundabout or McDonalds.

Absolute rubbish.

I will have you know they have not upgraded any of the monopoles near the McDonlads or indeed the one on the main A road next to the roundabout near me so you should not spread such untrue rumours. We get five bars of unusable 2G at McDonlads and five bars of unusable 3G 2100 at the roundabout and we are in the West Midlands!

They must be getting worried as they've started setting 4g power levels way below that of even 2100mhz 3g now around where I work, instead of doing it the sensible way, adding 2600mhz to take the immediate heavy load and leaving 800mhz to soak up the rest just below 900mhz 3g.
They just seem to be making things harder for themselves, if they set up a blanket 4g & 3g Base layer it would allow them to refarm some more 2g over to 3g 900mhz and some 2100mhz 3g over to 4g
This is what I don't understand, they've had a number of years already now and unlike three or O2 have the tools in the box to get the job done with a good amount of 2600mhz, 2100mhz along with 900mhz and even some 1800mhz so they could have rolled out these larger masts backed up with multiple layers of spectrum capacity,

I just feel it's following the same old pattern. We are heading towards the last quarter of 2016 now and it's the same old BS. Cities and Motorways. I think there is something rotten at the heart of VOD and O2 and I thought that had changed. I thought they were serious this time.

It's pitiful when you look at the lack of spectrum that 3 has, that they can still make a laughing stock of Vodafone and O2 over much of the UK. EE will just destroy them.

The east is massively better for rollout than the west.. Lots of improvements in the north east and rolling out into Scotland outside of the usual cities..

I think the problem is now they are getting more popular and usage is increasing. That was always the risk. Build a network that starts to be good, then people switch and noe its strained.

This is that tricky point, where hopefully the next push will get more capacity with the 2g sites going to 3g and more smaller sites being enabled to take the load.

I think they need to build a network with coverage first before they worry about speed.

Sorry I meant redemption

Vodafone roaming is very good. I got consistent speed all over NYC and DC, handled well in very heavily used areas like times sq and wall st etc... Three is shit 😬


Vodafone don't throttle while roaming and you have both 3G and 4G use

O2 are building a network with very good 3G900 coverage. As a few serious posters here will acknowledge, it just does not work. It's a map exercise to comply with things they signed up for. It's like a 4x12 Marshall Cab with a Sony Walkman plugged in the back. The potential for volume looks great. The reality is a load of crap.

Around Loughborough to Leicester it's not too bad with the main villages covered. It's just Quorn and Loughborough that need work - they just need to give 4G to Quorn, and need to upgrade more sites in Loughborough as it's mainly just monopoles at the moment meaning you fall back to legacy 3G indoors in many places. And despite this Vodafone write on their store "Enjoy Loughborough with a network you can depend on" lol. If they haven't upgraded more sites by the time EE roll out 800 there, it'll be a very easy decision to stay on EE.

Vodafone running a sim only offer. 20gb of data with 4gb of Euro data, plus unlimited calls/texts for £22.20

Superb deal.

Thanks jaffboy151 and Skippy2005. I've gone for the 12GB SIM at £15.36 a month and I pick it up tomorrow. I'll probably stick with my EE SIM in the UK by the looks of it.

With the NowTV subscription and hopefully some cashback it won't cost me too much over the year.

good deal but a network you do not want to join constant problem being voted the worst stealing and not fixing problems to loads of customers and the worst call centre in the business.

EE are doing £20 for 16GB, which isn't that much worse, plus EE have better 3G/4G in my area.

I mean, I've just checked the coverage maps and there is STILL no planned upgrades for Vodafone in Thrapston - which isn't great as VF don't even have a 2G mast there (there is 2G coverage from a neighboring mast in another area - if it wasn't for 900MHz, Thrapston would be a blackspot for VF!). O2 do have coverage via G09 and G18...

Oundle is another weakspot for Vodafone... having to rely on a neighboring mast for G09, with no U09/U21 or L08/L18/L26. O2 do have a mast, but 2G only, and EE/3/Orange (yes there is an ex-Orange mast there) all have 3G. C'mon O2/Vodafone!

Voda have upgraded the A1 Lobthorpe mast at last. The retro exposed 2G multi antenna array has gone to be replaced by 3 new antennae. O2 now have access so expanding their coverage.

I had some meetings in Birmingham on Thursday and I was impressed how much band1 2100mhz LTE that Vodafone have rolled out in many places.

What was very disappointing was the lack 2600mhz and carrier aggregation there just a tiny little bit near the Mailbox shopping centre other than that nothing really very poor considering the size of the city and how much bandwith Vodafone have.

The second disappointment was the speed on 2100mhz 4G I know they have only been able move 5mhz and 10mhz in others which means speed has dropped below 10Mb but as soon as you could get back onto 800mhz speeds improved. Vodafone seem to abe set 2100mhz as a higher priority

Vodafone I have found to be excellent where 4G has been rolled out and where it has Vodafone is by far the strongest network indoors.

These new SIMO deals are amazing value for money too.

I too am impressed with the amount of Vodafone L21 in Manchester. I've confirmed all but 2 city centre masts are yet to receive it with all others now broadcasting it. The rollout is good across Greater Manchester also.
Again, parallels can be drawn to the 2600MHz rollout in Manchester, with 2 masts covering the city centre, 2 masts MediaCity UK and 1 mast Manchester United.

One thing I have noticed is the masts which went live for L21 a couple of weeks ago have now gone to 10MHz, and the new wave of masts which have gone live in the last few days are 5MHz. Perhaps you were unlucky enough to end up on masts which were 5MHz, but in a couple more weeks they'll be 10MHz and so speedtests will be into the double digits.